Sanhedrin 2 - 8

Three Steps to Twenty-Three

A sanhedrin ketanah - a lower court with the power to judge capital offenses - consisted of 23 judges.

Three steps must be taken to arrive at this number:

Step One:

The Torah speaks of "a community convicting" and "a community acquitting" regarding a capital case. Since the minimum number for a community is ten we establish that there must be enough members of the court for it to divide into two opposing factions of ten each.

Sub-total

20

Step Two:

The Torah directs us to acquit a defendant even if there is only a majority of one in his favor but not to convict him unless there is a majority of at least two against him. We must therefore add two to the "convicting community" of ten.

Sub-total

22

Step Three:

No court can have an even number of judges because it creates the possibility of being evenly divided and incapable of rendering a decisive judgment. We must therefore add one more judge in order to achieve an odd number.

Total

23

Sanhedrin 2a

First Things First - And Second

"The first thing a man is judged on in the World to Come,"

says Rabbi Hamnuna, "is whether he learned Torah."

A question arises regarding this statement: The Gemara in Masechta Shabbos (31a) states that judgment regarding Torah study comes only after a man is tried regarding his honesty in business.

Tosefos resolves the problem with this explanation:

There are people who study Torah but don't consider it important enough to set aside a specific schedule for such learning which he will not readily disrupt. The first thing a man is held accountable for is whether he studied Torah at all. Accountability for having a fixed schedule for learning comes only after being judged in regard to his honesty.

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